After
by burningdarkfire
Summary: C.C. studied carefully the face of her partner in this ruined and treacherous world.  Lulu/CC


**After**

The green haired woman strode purposefully through the long swaying grass. Far away from any civilization, she moved with the determination of someone who has seen her greatest desire and is afraid that it will be snatched away if she does not grab it. Ducking her head to avoid a low branch as she entered a small patch of trees, she soon walked back out into the gentle sight of the peaceful mountain valley that she had come to.

There was someone she must meet here. Her eyes flickered around, searching for who she had come to see.

"C.C.!" The voice rang out quietly, vibrating with the power of one who knew the price of being a king amongst men. "You came."

"You're okay." She turned around and smiled slightly, not letting her immense relief show on her face. "I'm glad to see the transfer was completed."

Lelouch vi Britannia nodded, a satisfied smirk flitting into place on his face. "Charles, the 98th Emperor of Britannia, gave his Code to me. I'm now immortal, just like you, C.C."

C.C. studied carefully the face of her partner in this ruined and treacherous world, the world that the very same person in front of her right now had destroyed and left to flourish once again. "I've wanted to die for a very long time, Lelouch. Living forever is not all that it is made out to be."

Lelouch inclined his head towards her for a moment. "First, I must apologize for the circumstances that have rendered me unable to fulfill the contract. Now that I'm a Code-bearer myself, I can no longer take on your Code and release you from the hold it has on you."

"No," she heard herself saying. "The contract stated that you would fulfill my greatest wish."

Lelouch looked at her in surprise, an emotion that rarely occurred to him. C.C. shrugged. Red eyes behind purple contacts pierced her as he questioned what she had just said. "What is your greatest wish then?"

C.C. turned her face away from him, choosing instead to stare at a tree just over his shoulder. "When I first met you, it's true that my greatest wish was to die; however, now I have a new wish – but this one I will not hold it to you to see it completed."

Lelouch frowned. "Won't you at least tell me what it is?" When C.C. remained silent, her mind churning frantically, he pressed further. "Aren't we still partners, even without a contract?"

C.C. looked at him and smiled again. "Take your contacts off, will you?" She requested of him.

Confused, yet another expression that was rarely seen on Lelouch, was evident on his face as he did what she asked. "What's the meaning of this?" He demanded, both his eyes glowing a strange red color.

"It's as I predicted," C.C. murmured. "You obtained the Geass from one Code-bearer, and the Code from another. You are still able to use your Geass, unlike me. Not that I want to," she added as a bitter afterthought. "Although I suppose nowadays I could get contacts like yours."

"C.C.," Lelouch's voice had a new layer to it, a layer of magic and compulsion. The power of his Geass was fully unleashed now that the sigils in his glowing red eyes were clearly visible. "Tell me what this is all about."

C.C. looked at him, studying him: his body was slim and slender, lacking muscle and strength, although his mental capacities more than made up for his physical deficiencies; his face was narrow but not unpleasant to look at, with eyes that were red now but were usually an unusual, piercing, purple, and hair that fell untidily but not without order around his face, framing it.

"What else did you want to say?" C.C. asked quietly, diverting the topic from herself.

Lelouch gave her a glare that told her he had not fallen for her ridiculously unsubtle attempt to change the subject, although he knew her well enough to know that if she didn't want to tell him, no matter how much he bothered her, she wouldn't. "Well, I wanted to say that second of all, I've already contacted Suzaku and Jeremiah to let them know that I'm alright and that our plan worked perfectly. The world is in the process of being rebuilt and hopefully this time, there will be peace and justice."

"There will never be peace and justice," C.C. said, her voice flat. "I've lived long enough to see the true nature of man – throughout the years, the decades, the centuries, mankind will always return to war. They will always fight each other, whether from greed, envy, or desperation, as long as there is even the slightest bit of inequality, the flaws in human nature will surface. Even if we lived in a world where each and every one human being was equal, there would be ones that would think themselves above everyone else, and they will attempt to seize power and govern others."

Lelouch gave a small chuckle. "I never knew you were so opposed to what I was trying to achieve."

"No, not opposed," C.C. corrected him immediately. "I just lost my faith in humanity a long time ago. I don't believe the world you wished to create is possible, as long as there are humans walking on this earth."

"You said 'wished'," Lelouch observed, as attentive as always to little details. "What makes you think I no longer wish for a peaceful world?"

C.C. shrugged. "You can still wish to create it, but the Zero Requiem is over. Your part is finished; the rest is up to Suzaku and the others that you left behind."

Lelouch smirked. "I was never one to have much confidence in what most people could build for themselves, I'll admit. The core group of the Black Knights are good people though, and good people will always seek to bring out the good in the world around them. Suzaku will merely act as their leader."

"You don't think Suzaku is a good person?" C.C. asked, challenging Lelouch with her green eyes.

"Suzaku was too strong for his own good," Lelouch smiled at the thought of his childhood friend. "He believed too much in peace, not enough in war, although he is the best Knightmare pilot this world has ever seen. He broke beneath his own morals, as they betrayed him again and again, until he had nothing left but the wish of a dead princess."

"A princess that he loved, and that you killed," C.C. murmured quietly.

Lelouch looked at her gravely. "Yes. I am, and will forever be, stained with the blood and lives of millions of people, all of who had someone who loved them."

"You yourself will die over and over again," C.C. warned. "It doesn't get any less painful or any easier after the first time."

Lelouch's hand drifted to his chest, where he pressed it against where he had been stabbed by Suzaku. "It was strange. Even knowing that I might not come back … even knowing that I might truly be gone … I could smile through the pain. Smile, because my plans were finally complete; I could finally be at rest."

"What will you do now, Lelouch?" C.C. asked abruptly, changing the subject. "Destroyer of worlds, creator of worlds, a king amongst men … what will you do now?"

"I will wait," he said simply. "I will wait for this new world that I have created to grow and prosper, and should the need come again, I will destroy this world and build yet another one from its ashes, again and again, until the world can know peace."

"Good thing you're immortal then," C.C. finally dropped the mask she had been wearing for so long, allowing a lone tear to slip down her cheek. "But I'll warn you: immortality is nothing but the promise of a never ending loneliness."

"You can't be lonely," Lelouch held out his hand to C.C. "If you like the person you're alone with."

Incredulous, C.C. looked at his hand, then back up at his face. "What are you saying?"

"Lelouch vi Britannia asks of you, stay with me." Lelouch's voice was quiet, almost hesitant. "Wander the world with me and rest with me when we get weary of travelling, perhaps of life itself, until the moment when we choose to keep on living."

C.C. could feel the tears flowing freely down her face, blurring her vision and reducing Lelouch into a vague blur of black.

"We can choose, C.C." Lelouch continued as C.C. felt herself being drawn in by the power of his words, not for the first time. Even without Geass, his voice was poignant and strong, persuasive and confident. "We can choose to exist, as empty puppets animated only by the promise of death, or we can choose to live."

Wiping her green eyes with the back of her hand, C.C. felt her mouth tremble as she truly smiled at the boy in front of her for a moment. "You're still so young," she laughed quietly. "I will stay with you, Lelouch."

His face broke into a smile as well. "I hope that you'll tell me your greatest wish one day, so that I may finally fulfill our contract."

"I wouldn't want to lose you as an official partner though," C.C. responded teasingly, slipping her hand at last into Lelouch's.

"Our partnership is timeless now," Lelouch promised, taking a moment to put in his contacts, so that violet eyes gazed at C.C.

C.C. laughed, happy as she hadn't been in such a long time. Pulling Lelouch along beside her, they walked together, the world following the Zero Requiem spinning under their feet.

_As long as you're here, my greatest wish has been granted._

**A/N** - This is my first fic in this fandom; I hope I wasn't too OOC. I feel as though out of all the characters, C.C. is the one that leaves the most question unanswered at the end. She is the most mysterious and the least easy to predict out of everyone - which makes her my second favourite character, after Lelouch.

Reviews please?


End file.
